


abandoned drafts

by Metronomeblue



Series: imagine me & you- forever [18]
Category: Bleach
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Kitsune, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Canon Compliant, Kink Negotiation, Multi, Not Canon Compliant, One Shot Collection, Polyamory Negotiations
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-26
Updated: 2020-06-26
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:14:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 11,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24932113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Metronomeblue/pseuds/Metronomeblue
Summary: Just some snippets and pieces of things I began and don't think I'll finish. Rating is to cover all of my bases, just in case
Relationships: Abarai Renji/Bazz-B, Aizen Sousuke/Original Character/Ichimaru Gin, Coyote Starrk/Original Character(s), Hinamori Momo/Muguruma Kensei, Ichimaru Gin/Original Character(s), Kira Izuru/Otoribashi Roujuurou/Original Character(s), pre-Bazz-B/Jugram Haschwalth
Series: imagine me & you- forever [18]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/909927
Comments: 1
Kudos: 12





	1. Gen- pre-Bazz/Haschwalth; unfinished

**Author's Note:**

> this really is just a grab bag of stuff I don't have the motivation to finish. I have a lot (a LOT) of wips and requests I still haven't finished, so at some point you have to look at them and decide who you just don't vibe with anymore lmao

The arrow landed shy of its target, his arms giving it only force enough to clatter, harmless, to the floor. Another reminder that it wasn’t even his, crafted from wood and iron rather than reishi, like a proper Quincy’s bow. He fell, exhausted, to his knees. Like a child. Like a man so deprived of hope that the taste of it became bitter. “ _ Pitiful _ ,” Bazz’s voice echoed in his mind, too young and too brash to have known how those words would linger. Too brave to know what it was to shrink away. He clenched his fist, still sore with overuse and spattered with blood from where his fingertips had worn through on the bowstring. He paused, collecting his emotions once more, and pulled himself back onto his feet.  _ Enough _ , he thought.  _ Enough now.  _ Silbern rose like ice-white claws against the black of the sky. The snow crusted his knees, the palms of his hands where they’d pressed, vainly, against the paved stone. He felt empty now, tired and hollowed of his last hope. If even his King’s power wasn’t enough to give him this, then he would never have it. He’d come to terms with that long ago, he’d thought, but this…. Enough, then. No more hoping. There was no use in it. Any of it.

“Jugo?” His eyes fluttered shut in mingled relief and shame before they opened, defiant. Bazz already knew, had spent years pretending to sleep as he tried in vain to carve a bow, to fletch arrows, to form a bow or hit a target. And then, when that failed, to train ceaselessly with the sword he carried, enough to drive him to collapse beside him. Bazz knew. Why pretend to be ashamed, then, after all this time. 

“I thought I’d try once more,” he admitted, blankly, raising one bloody, gloved hand to show him.

“Still?” He asked, and his voice was almost soft. Almost. He looked at Jugram with a narrowed eye, taking in the blood, the snow, the flickering inhuman eyes. “Guess there are some things even he can’t do, huh?” His voice was even, casual, almost uninterested. Triumphant. Jugram let out a careful sigh.

“There are certain things no man can change,” he replied. “Even those who are closer to gods.” Bazz nodded, hand landing heavy in the center of Jugram’s back. 

“Good,” he said, and the heat of his hands reminded Jugram once more of how they’d changed already. “You’re dangerous enough as you are.”

They both knew then, Bazz’s hand gentle on his back, no knife in sight, that he meant it. 

* * *

Bazz loved him, he knew, but he had never admired Jugram. He had never looked at him with the same soft awe which was laid upon him now, as though he wasn’t a failure but something small and shining. He wanted so badly for that to be true, but the condemnation in Bazz’s eyes stopped him from believing it. Bazz knew him best, after all. Bazz knew him to his core, and if Bazz saw this kindness and found it false, then Jugram should know better than to believe it. 

“My uncle called me Jugo,” he said quietly, almost casually. As though it mattered but he didn’t want it to. “Before.”

“Oh,” Bazz said. Jugram looked down, blinking at his shoes, blank-faced and carefully calm. “D’you want me to stop?”

“No.” Jugram just swallowed, shaking his head jerkily. “I just want you to know. That before it wasn’t a good thing to hear.”

Bazz knew, somewhere deep inside. He knew there was something in the way Jugram had been almost angry when he’d first called him Jugo, something lurking in the way he’d been dead set on the rabbit, the way he’d looked up at Bazz, deferent but defiant, cold but annoyed. As if he was used to it. Later, he’d notice more. The way Jugram sometimes pulled away from his arms, the way he’d snap when Bazz mentioned avenging his uncle, the way his eyes deadened. 

He didn’t ask. Jugram never offered. But on cold nights when Jugram remained, stubborn and shivering, coldly turning down any offer of help, Bazz would reach out and pull him in close. Loose-armed, easily thrown away, an offer instead of a demand. As close as he came to sensitivity. Jugram would stiffen, and Bazz would just wait. Let him think. When he softened, 


	2. Gin/reader/Aizen- vampire AU; angst?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> uhhh warnings for general messy vampire stuff- blood kink(?), blood drinking etc, as well as Aizen being verbally and emotionally abusive in his usual manipulative way, bc he is a Bastard Man. This is also VERY unfinished- lots of gaps and missing pieces

Gin’s teeth ached to pierce flesh, to scrape furrows into someone’s throat and lap at the blood there. He yearned for carnage, for bloodshed, for wrath and ruin and blood- so much blood. He wanted to rend flesh, tear muscle- he wanted to smash something, to break, to harm. Instead he breathed into her shoulder, face hidden, curled around her like a winding vine. His arms held her like ivy holds brick, eroding and sweet, shattering and gentle. He let himself believe it was love. He let himself believe he wouldn’t harm either of them, no matter the depth of his want.

* * *

“Lie down,” Sosuke said, and if he was harsher than usual it was more touching than gentleness from him could ever be. Harsh from Sosuke was concern. Care. He moved over to her and firmly pressed her back down. “You’re bleeding out.”

“I’ll go back to sleep,” she waved him off mildly, and he caught her hands and pushed them gently back into her chest. She smiled at him, tired and limp. “You’re wrong,” she said, more quietly, sitting up fully, and Gin held back a hand of his own for fear he might break a bone with the force of his worry. “You really are a fool,” she said to Sosuke, and her thin hand on his cheek was light. Too light, barely a touch, and Sosuke himself didn’t brush it away. 

“Clearly,” he agreed, lifting her to move her more fully onto the bed. “Between the two of you, I must be.”

[more conversation here?]

He bent his head to Sosuke’s wrist, laving the blood that had dropped from the wound already, refusing to waste any even as more oozed from his skin. He could taste the rotten flower of cologne on Sosuke’s skin, soap and sweat and blood, so much blood. It tasted dark, like flame and spice and wood, like oranges studded with cloves and vanilla burned on cedar. He swallowed it, running his tongue along the wound over and over again, as if by pressing himself closer he could taste Sosuke’s spirit in his flesh. _ Monster _ , his mind chanted mockingly.  _ Monster, monster, monster. Devouring him. Draining her. Monster, monster, monster. Demon. Insatiable. Heartless _ . He could feel the salt of his tears falling cool on Sosuke’s skin, and he pulled back, lips red and hands smeared with Sosuke’s blood and his own spit. 

“Better?” Sosuke asked, almost gently. Almost. Gin blinked, slowly, thought about it, felt the lack of thirst, the solid end where once his need had been boundless. Anise and cinnamon, vanilla and sweet clover filled him, and he nodded, tears burning his eyes. Sosuke’s expression didn’t change, impassive and just on the edge of a smirk, but his eyes softened from anger to a mild surprise. Gin crept in closer, rising up on his knees to wind an arm around Sosuke’s neck.

“Thank you,” Gin murmured, smiling. He leaned up to press red kisses to Sosuke’s cheeks. “Thank you.” Sosuke let him, let Gin curl one spindly hand around his wrist and arch his back to reach Sosuke’s face, still and calm. “It’s because I love you,” Gin told him, half-mournful, half-glad. He was grinning again, menacing but sweet. “I can’t live without you.” Sosuke’s eyes fluttered closed, a look of almost beatific satisfaction in his face, and Gin trembled to see the possession in his smile. His eyes opened again, perfect and cold, soft with hunger when they met Gin’s slivers of wet green-blue. 

“You can’t love,” Sosuke told him, still smiling. “You’re a monster.” He cupped Gin’s face in his hand, curiously happy. Gin smiled, heart breaking, and nodded into Sosuke’s still-bleeding hand.

“I’m a monster,” he agreed, the faded, weak beat of her heart echoing in his ears. The smell of her blood and Sosuke’s like heaven on his breath. “Just hunger with a face.” He turned his head, let his eyes rest for a long moment on her. Sosuke had moved her, curled her around a pillow and wrapped her in blankets. She looked frozen, eyelids and lips the same bloodless, dusky violet, lips trembling with each labored breath. “I’m a monster,” he repeated again, and Sosuke followed his eyes with a curious satisfaction. 

“I would have expected you to hold back,” he said, looking into Gin’s eyes. “You’re never so careless.”

“It’s harder when you’re not here,” Gin admitted, pressing his face into Sosuke’s shoulder, scenting him, breathing in traces of blood, dark and fragrant, laundry soap, sweat and cologne. It settled something in him, the taste and scent and sight of the last third of their little triad. “Is that why you won’t let me drink?” He asked, quietly. “Because I need it so much?”

“That makes no sense,” Sosuke replied, something stiff in his voice.

“Because I need you now,” Gin said, smiling up at him. “And it reminds you that I didn’t before.” Sosuke looked down on him, face frozen, eyes wide and fathomless.

“You’re a cruel man,” he said quietly. “You’re wrong.”

“Am I?” Gin asked, fingers curling around his wrists. “Sosuke, you know I love you.”

“You can’t love,” he repeated, voice so low it was almost a whisper. “So long as you need me- you can’t love. It’s impossible.”

“I can,” Gin insisted, pressing his face to Sosuke’s cheek. “I love you. Both of you.”

“No.”

“Sosuke-“

“I’ll take her to the doctor,” he said calmly, and Gin sighed, nodded, hiding his face in Sosuke’s shoulder. “You nearly killed her this time.”

“I know,” Gin said, muffled and quiet. “I was so hungry,” he murmured. “I wanted more of her.”

“So greedy,” Sosuke said, almost teasing. His hands were still stiff, shy of shaking. “You’ll have to be more careful from now on.”

[there was meant to be more conversation here]

“You’ll stay,” he said, shifting her into his arms so he could carry her. It might have been a question, from someone else. An expression of need, of want, of desire for Gin to stay despite his mistake. From Sosuke it was an order.

“I’ll stay,” Gin said.

He lied.


	3. Starrk/reader; Vampire au, Venice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was rlly rooting for this one. I wanted it to work. The idea was so cute in my head!! But it just wasn't coming out right.

The wash of the waves over stone had lulled Starrk to sleep undisturbed for seven centuries. Used to be that Lilynette’s screeching would be the thing to wake him, but she was long gone now, and he was still tired. So he slept and slept and slept and slept and slept. He’d only reach out to pull the thick velvet curtains aside in the morning, to block the sunlight out, and to pull them back to let the moonlight flood the room in the evenings. His surroundings had crumbled admirably since 1532, the water in the air and the salt in the water aging both stone and wood alike. The furniture was deceased, the front door hung at an angle, and the steps which had once admitted barons and boatmen alike were little more than a crusted, salt-bleeding plank hanging over the canal.

Venice had changed, though he did not. Venice had remained, present and evolving and living while Starrk lay silent in unwatched malaise. The future crept on, unabating, and sadly for Starrk, it had zeroed in on his quiet, crumbling home with the kind of focus he hated dispassionately. Early June, heated and shady, when the bugs began to breed and the water began to smell of blood, there was a knock on his door. 

Nobody knocked on his door. Certainly nobody knocked on his door during the day.

There was a second knock, then the telltale hiss of someone who has just received a splinter. He could taste her blood, hear her curse as she stood on the broken plank of the front step. 

“Hello?” The door creaked open, letting in a day of light. Starrk watched it grow from his place safe in the room to the right. He couldn’t avoid this, unfortunately. He considered killing her. “Well this is. Nice,” the woman said, falsely. She sighed. He could still smell her blood.


	4. Bazz-B/Renji; Vampire AU; pining, friends-to-lovers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bro......

“And Jugram?” Renji asked, passing the cigarette back to Bazz. Bazz’s face twisted, bitter and more than a little sad.

“I left him. You know how it goes.” Renji eyed him quietly, measuring. He looked a little more fucked up than usual, which was saying something.

“You just fucking left him?” Renji asked, deciding it was worth asking. “Thought you loved him.” Bazz choked.

“You know what I’m like,” Bazz scoffed. “He was pretty and he was willing to bleed. I didn’t love him.”

“You liked him,” Renji amended.

“Yeah,” Bazz said quietly. “I did like him.” He looked away, scuffing a worn sneaker on the gravel. “Didn’t matter.”

“Yeah,” Renji agreed, taking another drag from the cigarette. “Never does.” They sat in silence, watching the sun fall, the last, prickling rays of light leave the sky. Everything smelled like dying leaves and tar smoke.

“How’s Rukia?” Bazz asked, and Renji snorted.

“Still trying to get Byakuya to leave the house.”

“Fucking hell, is he still-?” Renji has to look away to keep from laughing. Bazz’s face was contorted in a hilarious mix of shock and exasperation, unfairly endearing. The cigarette trailed smoke, suspended halfway to his mouth. Renji fought a smile and took another sip of water before dropping the kicker.

“Still wears all black, too.”

“Oh, Jesus fuck. Get the man a new right hand ‘cause clearly the one he’s got ain’t doing its job.”

“He loved Hisana,” Renji said, more than a little reproachfully. Bazz shrugged callously.

“We don’t love,” he said. “We’re not capable. He just got confused.”

“I don’t know,” Renji tried not to look at him, tried to keep his voice even. “I’ve fallen in love before.”

“Before before?” Renji shook his head and Bazz scoffed. “Shit, man, maybe you’re confused, too.”

  
[more talking here]  
  


“He’s doing okay,” Bazz said suddenly. “Jugram. Full nine yards. Grandkids, old age, all of that.”

“You loved him,” Renji said again, more gently. More stubbornly. Hope over hope that maybe this time Bazz would crumble, would let go. That maybe this time he’d understand what Renji had been trying to kick through his skull for two hundred years.

“Nah,” Bazz said, gazing distantly over the horizon. “I don’t do love, you know that. No love that can break me.”

“‘Cept friendship,” Renji nodded, hope fading.

“Except friendship,” Bazz agreed. He took one last drag of the cigarette before letting his head fall to rest on Renji’s shoulder. “Except you.” Renji tried not to feel the hurt. He failed.

The stars mocked him as he looked up, Bazz’s head warm through his jacket, drowsy and hot where his shoulder fell against Renji’s. Soft, just for a moment, everything else cold and dark. 

“You still don’t see it,” he murmured. “You dumb kid.”

“Talking to me?” Bazz asked, muffled by where his mouth was pressed to Renji’s shoulder. Renji shook his head, taking another drink to avoid having to reply. “Sounded like you were talking to me.”

“I never talk to you,” Renji joked, rising, but Bazz sat up, frowning.

“You don’t, you know,” he said. “We haven’t talked in seventy years.” Renji’s heart would have stopped, if it wasn’t already dead and silent. 

“Talking’s hard,” Renji shrugged, still looking resolutely ahead, adjusting his jacket.

“Not for us,” Bazz said, stubbornly. “Never for us.”

“Don’t do this,” Renji sighed, finally turning. The look in his eyes stopped Bazz, seemed almost to strike him back. “Not after all this time.”

“If you’ve got something to say, you should probably fucking say it,” Bazz hissed. Renji looked down at him, eyes narrowed and mouth pressed into a firm, thoughtful line.

“I love you,” he said shortly, before turning on his heel and striding away. Bazz sat, knelt, wide-eyed and very, very still, arm still outstretched as if to grasp at Renji’s heel. As if to reach for him.


	5. Gin/reader; Kitsune AU, nonbinary/genderfluid Gin; some smut

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can definitely tell that I wrote this when I was first coming to terms with the idea that maybe I wasn't cis   
> (spoiler alert: I am not)
> 
> lots of gender feelings, lots of soft weird 'married to a feral spirit' content, infidelity?? I guess?? in line with the mythology anyway, some smut but not a lot, lots of missing pieces

It rained all through the wedding, though the sun shone until late in the evening. It poured down, wept in buckets and washed everything clean with sunlight and water. That should have been her first clue. “Fox’s wedding,” they’d joked, making ears of their fingers over Gin’s head. He’d just smiled, like he always did, smiled and laughed and batted them away with loose hands. He’d walked her home in the lessening light, the sun dappling them both in raindrops and warmth. 

“Kiss me first,” he’d asked, pulling her aside at the door, stopping her from walking into their home. “Kiss me,” he’d demanded, lips brushing over hers like butterfly wings. “Kiss me,” in a whisper, faces pressed together in a deeper intimacy. So she did, sweet and hopeful, giving. She pressed her body to his, lips warm and soft as they moved. He could taste the sake on her tongue, the sweetness of rice flour caught on her lips. The wet warmth of desire on her teeth when she bit at his lip.

“No rain today,” she said again, and she tried to keep the worry from her voice. Gin peered up at her from their bed, lazily sprawled under their sheets. There was a touch of reassurance in his voice when he spoke, almost lost in the nonchalance.

“It will come soon enough.” He reached out and beckoned her back to bed. “For now,” he purred, grinning up at her as she stood before him. “Stay with me, honeysuckle.” 

His hands were like knives on her body, long claws that unfurled her defenses, pulling apart the petals of a flower. She could feel the cold air on her skin, light like the icy kiss of summer rain. “Gin,” she gasped, and his smile opened, teeth glimmering in the dark. His fingers split her folds like the ripe, wet segments of a peach, delving into her core, moving, exploring, then just barely brushing into her. Teasing and sweet. Every time she made a noise, let out a halting, needy moan, he’d pull back. He was a gentler tease than he might have been, rewarding her trembling patience with a kiss. He’d press up into her with his fingertips, bruising soft on the slick flesh of her depths, twisting his hand before sweeping his thumb back over her clit.

It felt like being cracked clean in two, like being opened and emptied by pleasure. All at once she came together and shattered apart entirely, bruising and dripping sweet into his hand where it moved against the core of her. She panted and gasped and moaned into the air, back arched and head thrown back, hair spilling back, eyes fluttering. “C’mon dragonfly,” he murmured, still stroking. She swore her heart guttered and stopped and started again.

When she woke again, pleasantly tired and still tingling with pleasure, rain was pouring from the sky. She hurried from bed, standing in the doorway and watching in amazement as the world grew wetter and wetter. The drops were heavy, larger than her fingertips and cold like ice. They tore down from the sky, not furious but nevertheless too much, tearing the petals and leaves of plants, cracking loose limbs off of trees and bushes, and stirring what had been bone-dry dirt away into a flourishing swamp. She closed the door again, shivering, Gin’s arms curling around her waist and pulling her back to bed. He’d come up behind her, rubbing his face into her neck like a cat, his nose pressed into the hollow under her jaw.

“Told you so,” he said happily, and when they’d both curled up close under a multitude of blankets he kissed her, slow and sweet. His hands were cold like the rain on her body, and he grew soft and warm in her arms, but she couldn’t shake the tempest outside from her mind. Every slow, lingering kiss brought it back to her, tempting and teasing and almost unbelievable.

He tasted like rain.

He tasted like rain every day and every night of that month, water pouring tempestuous and unbound from the sky. When it stopped, when it slowed, he tasted like warm tea, blooming and left to steam in the sun. Each time the weather changed, so did his kiss, so did the heat of him pressed against her in the night. When the snow came he tasted of clear water, clean and cold and pure. 

He disappeared in spring, a year and a day after their wedding.

He slipped away in the night, nothing but singed sheets and the print of a kiss on her cheek left behind him. Sometimes she dreamed he’d said goodbye. She touched the mark, the shape of his lips gentle on her cheekbone. It stung, like a burn. Sometimes, she dreamed she’d seen him leave, pale and sad, looking back over his shoulder as he jumped from the window. She dreamed there was a fox’s skin curled softly under her fingers, that when she reached for him, her hand met only silken fur. She dreamed that flames had licked at her in the night, that Gin’s hands were warm, his chest like a furnace where it touched her back. 

She dreamed he came back. 

That was how she knew she was dreaming.

The rest of them whispered, bitter and cantankerous, gleeful at her misery.

[something something transition]

It was Gin, though. The same lithe frame, the same quick hands, the keen eyes and wide smile and soft touch of fondness in the tilt of her head. She turned to look and it became difficult not to cry out, to reach for the long, soft silver hair and pull at it. To drag her into her arms and hold her close because no matter what form she took, she was still Gin, still her lover. That smile was pinker, those eyes framed by different eyelashes, the pale, cold skin of that body arranged differently, but whoever it was, they were Gin. Wrapped up in a woman’s skin, Gin was still beautiful, still painful to look at, to touch. Her hair fine as a fox’s, lips as red as blood, eyes like black flower petals set over the sea. The bride turned, smiling the same smile, walking the same, soft-stepped way. Her heart in her chest, she watched her lover move, delicate and precise.

Gin stopped, tilted her head.

“Do we know each other?” She asked, reaching out a slim, clever hand. “You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”

“I don’t think ghosts are so cruel,” she whispered, tears pricking at her eyes. Gin’s eyelashes fluttered, her smile weakened, softened into a rueful slash, and her other hand came up to wrap around hers.

“Please don’t cry,” Gin said, and she almost sounded sad. “It’s bad luck to cry at a wedding.” She turned, pulling her hands from Gin’s grasp, and ran. Nobody stopped her. They all simply stood, chatting amicably, unperturbed by her sudden exit.

[aaaaa more missing stuff here]

“It’s in my nature,” Gin said softly, curling her beautiful arms around her wife’s neck, tangling her beautiful hands in her wife’s hair. “I cannot be something I am not,” she whispered, pressing her beautiful cheek to the crown of her wife’s head, holding her wife to her beautiful chest. It was painful, the radiance of her. Something immortal and unknowable bleeding from every cell of her like light and agony. 

“Will I see you ever again?” She asked, tears staining Gin’s fine, perfect kimono. Gin held her closer, eyes fluttering as if to brush away tears.

“Yes, pear blossom, if you wish.”

“I wish,” she said, painfully. “I wish, I-“

“Hush,” Gin whispered, hands tightening on her, pulling her in flush. “I’ll never leave you for long.”

“You will,” she whispered, hands almost curled to claws in her silks. “You’ll leave and you’ll love other people and marry other people and-“

“Come back to you,” Gin said, and it was soft with promise. “How many lives do you think I’ve lived? A hundred? A thousand? I don’t fall in love like this very often, briar.”

“Love?” She choked, shaking her head as much as she could in her grasp. “You don’t love anyone. You just need us to love you.” Gin sighed, breath fluttering over her hair. It was like being held by summer, wrapped in cool skin and warm silk, sweet breath and tears.

“I love each of you,” she admitted, eyes tightly shut. “In my way, as best I can.” Gin lifted her chin, hands gentle, and smiled into her sad eyes. “It’s in my nature,” she repeated softly. “I cannot stay for too long. I cannot linger in one heart. I get restless,” she confessed. “I grow tired and bitter and the foxfire takes the life of my love.” She cupped her face in her hands and tilted it up, kissing her gently. “You’re the first person who’s been able to hold me,” she murmured, pride and love warm in her voice. “The first to tie me to a place for longer than I should stay. But even you, my dear wife, even you who I love so well, I cannot keep company with for more than a year.” She sobbed into Gin’s grasp, face streaked wet with tears and the soft wax of the color from Gin’s lips. “I cannot rest beside the person I love, or else I will consume us both.”

“Stay,” she whispered, and Gin shook her head, hair fluttering and mouth set.

“I won’t burn you,” Gin said firmly.

“I wouldn’t mind if you did,” she confessed, tears still icing over as they fell.

“I must go,” Gin insisted, plaintively. She looked down at her wife’s hands, held fast to her sleeves, and she pulled away, face tight with sadness. “Sweet briar, don’t make me stay.”

“Then kiss me first,” She asked, and Gin’s eyes closed, soft and regretful.

[time passing here]

“Would you prefer me as a man?” She asked quietly, and for the first time since the night Gin had left, she could see the glimmer of blue eyes.

“I don’t care,” she said, sadly, and the flash of shock, of pleased softness in Gin’s face was brilliant and cold. “Whoever you are. Whatever you are.” Her hands spasmed, pained. “I love you.” Gentle fingers returned to her face, swept her tears away, and soft, cold lips pressed to hers. 

“I am yours,” Gin murmured, into her lips. “I’m the man who married you and the woman who kissed your tears away. I’m the fox and I’m the spirit and I’m yours, blossom.” Her voice was the same, high and cool and soft, but the accent slipped, honesty and warmth filling her mouth. “I’ll come back, goldfinch, promise you.” She never felt more vulnerable, face pressed to Gin’s, hands tangled in silk and knees bleeding in the snow. “I’ll come back,” she whispered, eyes truly closed.

“Do you go back to the others?” She asked, pulling away to gaze up at Gin, Gin who had so shattered her, Gin who had held her in the guise of another and whispered apologies and married so many before her, after her, Gin who she trusted, Gin who had flooded her home, who had killed her neighbors, who had taken her life entirely and smiled, smiled, smiled while she did it. Gin who was looking at her with a soft regret.

“No,” she admitted. “They never see me again.”

“Then why me? What makes me so different?”

“I love you,” Gin said, pained and quiet, as if there was no other way to explain it. “I love you in a way that keeps me from leaving.” She looked down, and Gin watched her rise, legs shaking and bloody. She still clutched the sleeves of Gin’s kimono, as if afraid to let go.

“Should I ask you to leave?” She asked, trembling still. “Would you rather be free?” Gin sighed, touched but sad, and stepped closer to look her in the eye.

“Never,” she whispered, smile small and honest. “Keep me chained, honeybee. Keep me tied. Keep me close,” she asked, almost playful. “When I’ve been gone too long, tug me back home. When I’ve wasted too much time apart from you, call me back.” She shook her head. “I’m yours. I like being yours.” She let go of Gin’s sleeves, knuckles still white and muscles locked from the strain of holding so tightly. Gin took her hands in her own and kissed them warm, let them soften and unfold in her grasp.

“Come back to me,” she whispered, when she could muster the voice. She reached up, fingers delicate on Gin’s face. “Love them, leave them, lie to them, but please come back to me.”

[I think a transition here?]

Sometimes she hears the window open, the door shift, the soft, familiar pad of footsteps on the floor. Gin drifts in like a spring wind, creeps into her bed and curls up close. Sometimes a woman, all cold, long curves, lithe, with hips like broken stone. Sometimes a man, thin and tall, with joints that are too sharp and a throat just wide enough to wrap a hand around. Sometimes between the two, hazy and undefined, long hair or short, fine hands and thin hips, a soft curve to their chest or a long plane of open skin, changing and new but perfect and familiar nonetheless. Always, always, Gin. Silver hair and shimmering sea-green eyes, smiling and soft. Always the person she loved most. 

Some nights they slept that way, knotted arms and faces burning into each other’s shoulders. Sometimes they’d reach for each other and lie face-to-face, kissing slowly, sporadically, dozing in the warmth of the other’s presence. Sometimes they’d collide, hands grasping and mouths wide and begging, heat between their thighs and hunger in their hearts. Sometimes they’d talk, wrapped in blankets and leaning against the wall, more honesty between them than there was before. It kept her heart from freezing, kept her from growing bitter. She wondered, at times, if there was another. If Gin had wed as a woman or a man, if he had had this same conversation with his wife or if she’d slept with her husband before she’d come to her or if- but all she ever had to do was ask Gin, to put a voice to her worries, and she’d receive an answer. Sometimes she did, and Gin would smile into her shoulder and tell her, clever fingertips stroking her skin, voice low but removed as he spoke of distant places and people he didn’t care for. Honesty was a relief, really. He asked her, every now and then, if she’d moved on, if, like him, her heart was boundless and unfixed, but she only shook her head and smiled.

“Only you,” she said quietly. “Whoever you are, whatever you are.” He looked at her with a kind of muted sorrow, as though she was missing something. “I love you,” was all she said. “That’s enough for me.”

Nights like that, cold nights, when they didn’t dare let a hand slip over the blankets for fear of freezing, he’d lie over her, in a man’s skin or a woman’s, both or neither, shoulders slipping free of the sheets’ warmth. He’d press his mouth to hers and hunch his shoulders, arch over her body, half-greed and half-desire, as if to guard it from all around them.

“All that love,” he’d murmur, and she’d look into his sad, smiling eyes. “All that love, just for me.”


	6. Rose/Reader/Izuru; newly established relationship, kink negotiation, polyamory discussions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> another one where I look at it and frown bc like.... I wanted you to work out.
> 
> basically just pre-etsablished Izuru/reader getting Rose to admit he's a sadist bc even though they're all happy they can tell he's just a little unsatisfied. no actual smut or sadism, just chatting

The work day is only about half over when Izuru comes to him, arms full of paperwork that isn’t for him and feet shifting with all the nerves of a teenager about to confess some wrongdoing. Rose looks up at him, willing to wait him out, willing to listen. He watches Izuru take another step into his office, slow with thought. He looks up, meets Rose’s eye and swallows, as if waiting for permission.

“Lieutenant,” Rose acknowledges, and he offers a slight smile, returned softly on Izuru’s tired mouth. “Go ahead.” Izuru flushes, pink tinting the tips of his ears, the bridge of his nose, burning small freckles to a darker gold.

“It’s about our- what we do after work.” Rose almost wants to laugh, because truly, reducing the joy and wonder of the relationship the three of them had somehow managed to patch together down to ‘what we do after work’ was an injustice. “It’s been wonderful, so far. You and me, and us and we- we care for you a great deal, and we thought-” Izuru falters, biting his lip. He won’t look at Rose, eyes his feet with a nervous gaze.

“Yes, muse?” Rose asks quietly, almost nervous now, himself. Izuru sighs, a half-smile filling his face. Something in him steels, and he looks Rose in the eye.

“Tonight. Our house. Would you… Would you like to stay the night?” There’s a question nestled into the question, a polite request that Rose could deny or accept with ease. He smiles back, Izuru’s hope burgeoning, brightening under the response, and despite the knotted reservations in his chest, Rose can’t stop himself.

“Of course, dearest,” he says, and the 

[abrupt lack of transition]

“How is this going to work, do you think?” She asks, undoing her hair. Izuru gives her a deer-in-the-headlights look and shakes his head. She turns away and looks over her shoulder questioningly.

“You remember last time,” he says, standing to help her. She lifts her hair and he reaches out to unclasp her necklace, the motions familiar and practiced. She turns and begins to untie the Lieutenant’s badge, as familiar with its edges as her own name. “He wasn’t- Rose will be different. We can’t do things the same way.” She pauses, letting the weight of it settle in her hands before she responds.

“Yes.” She nods, folding the long ties together and not meeting his eye. “We have to be softer.” She moves to place the badge on his dresser, and he follows, stepping around her so she has no choice but to see him. She shakes her head, silent but distraught, and he wraps his arms around her waist. She lets his chest hide her face, sinks a little into the warmth of him.

“He’s good,” he says softly, lips brushing her forehead, and she still looks down. “He loves us. He loves us. This won’t be like last time.” She lets her hands creep up, clench around soft handfuls of his uniform.

“If it is-” she stops, her chest shuddering and tense with words she can’t make small enough to leave her mouth. “If it is, we end it.”

“If it is, we end it,” he agrees, something old and bruised in both of them rising, aching. “We make him leave.”

“What about-” She swallows. “Fraternization. The two of you-”

“The paperwork has you down as my partner. He’s not involved with either of us on paper. Officially there’s nothing between us to clean up.” He sighs, fingers trailing up and down her back. “Rose and I can be civil enough at work.”

  
[uh also lack of transition]

“Please,” Izuru cups Rose’s face in one hand, gentle, so careful. “Please, Rose, be honest with us.” There’s a flicker of hurt in his eyes, as if Rose has done something to deceive him, and there’s a tangle in his chest knowing he has. He can’t ask that of them. He can’t. Not these two, soft and so hurt. His heart yearns for their blood, the gnawing hunger only intensified by his love for them, but he can’t ask. To shatter a casual lover, to crack them open and make them sing- that’s easy. To have the people he loves most put themselves in his hands, unaware that his dearest wish is to break them- he can’t ask. They trust him. He can’t ask.

“I-“ He shakes his head, the silence broken by a rough, half-formed sound. “My particular proclivities aren’t- They’re not kind.” There’s no way to say it that isn’t exposing, that doesn’t show the ugly, burdened need in him. “They aren’t things people are willing to do, or at least not to the degree that I enjoy-” He can feel all the wrong words rising up in his throat, all the explanations crashing in on each other, and he swallows them. “I was taught a gentleman doesn’t ask such things of the people he cares for, that it’s wrong to- and of course I learned better out in the world, but even so there are things one musn’t ask-“ Izuru’s hand covers his mouth, still gentle, still calm. His skin is cool and callused against Rose’s lips, and Rose lets that stop him, lets his words build up and break behind his teeth. Quiets. She moves from where she stood, leaning against the the wall, and kneels beside Izuru to look up at him.

“Rose,” she says, voice quiet, eyes sharp. She reaches up and pulls Izuru’s hand away, twining her fingers with his. “Please don’t do this. Please just be honest. We don’t- we don’t wish to hurt you.” She’s so honest, so earnest. He laughs at that, bitterly.

“I wish I could say the same,” he mutters mockingly, self-loathing rising in his voice.

“Rose-” Izuru snaps, defensive and angry, as if to stop him from disparaging himself. Rose shakes his head at that, meets his clear blue eyes with all the tired, resigned honesty he can muster.

“Pain,” Rose says, almost disgustedly, as if it frustrates him. As if hurts to say. “I enjoy pain.” Izuru blinks, face going loose and surprised, but her eyes narrow, she shifts.

“Giving or receiving?” She asks, calm, even. Interested. As if it’s perfectly reasonable to want such a thing, as if it doesn’t upset her at all. That makes it easier. He can live with cold curiosity.

“Giving,” he admits shamefully, covering his face with his hands, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes. His voice is hoarse, full of regret. “Only ever giving. Being in pain does nothing to me, but hurting people-” His voice drops, and his next words come sadly, wistfully. “Hurting the people I  _ love _ , especially. That gives me such pleasure it overcomes me.” The memories are closer to the fore than he’s used to, old lovers writhing, begging, but flinching away when he so much as suggested- foes bleeding, something high and blissful in his heart, friends looking at him without anger, but not without judgement- it aches more than he likes to imagine either of them eyeing him with the same mix of disgust and unease. The merest suggestion in his mind of their fearing him, of either of them backing away, keeps his muscles tense and his hands over his eyes. In this, if nothing else, he is willing to be a coward. He can hear both of them move, the shift of her yukata, the soft sigh in Izuru’s throat.

“Is that all?” Izuru asks softly, taking his hands from his face. “Oh, Captain, is that all you wanted?” Rose looks at them, a curious mix of bewilderment and reluctant hope in his face. She’s beside him, smiling, just a little, biting her lip, and Izuru looks almost exasperated.

“Izuru,” she informs him easily, with a hint of glee, “is as certified a masochist as there is.” Rose can’t help looking to him, seeing the flush on his cheeks, the way his eyes shuffle away shyly.

“Is that so?” He asks, as gently as Izuru had spoken to him. His Lieutenant nods, grip tightening on his hands. 

“I- we didn’t think it right to ask you... in case it would upset you. Not everyone is- some people find it abhorrent.” And there’s a story there, in the small frown that settles on his mouth, the dissatisfaction that blooms in her eyes, but Rose’s heart is beating too fast to ask for it, his throat is all tied up with hope he wishes he didn’t have. 

“But not you,” he says, asks, and Izuru shakes his head.

“I love it. It’s wonderful,” he admits. His eyes are distant, yearning. “It’s so sweet when it's done with love."

“Hmmm,” she hums in agreement, smile back on her mouth, and they share a look, both of them reliving some memory. Rose can’t quite believe how lucky he must be, how much fate has handed him, to find two people who don’t flinch from his shame but lean into it, who ache for it in ways complementary to his. His fingers itch in Izuru’s hand, want for the feel of bruising skin and broken, the soft agony of these people he loves so much. So much, and now with such relief that he doesn’t have to let go of them.

“And you?” He asks her, mouth dry from the thought, heat already humming in his veins at the thoughts racing inside of him. “Are you-“

“Oh, I’ll do anything,” she assures him calmly. “I’ve been on both sides of the knife, and both were enough to have me aching for it.” The knife, she says, so casually. He knows it’s a dangerous thing, he has so little self-control when he has a blade in his hands, but the image of her bleeding for him, painted red, or her cutting delicately into Izuru’s skin, careful and clean, builds the burn in his body. It makes him want, makes him hungry. The hollow shifts in him like a physical presence in his chest, and he has to bite down on the urge to push them down and bare their souls to him.

“There’s nothing to worry about,” Izuru says, and though his voice is still soft, his face is clear, open. She nods, resting her head on Izuru’s shoulder, lazy and relaxed. 

“We’d do anything for you,” she admits slowly, looking away. The words lurch in Rose’s ears, painful and sad but he’s greedy enough to bask in them. To enjoy the triumph there. Izuru makes a small sound of agreement, reaching up to tuck a stray lock of hair behind her ear. “We really would try, whatever it is you need from us, if there was anything else-” He draws the line there, already so full of feeling and need that the promise of anything might be too much to bear.

“Just you,” Rose says, shaking his head, slipping to his knees before them, and his arms bring them to his chest almost against his own will. “I told you before. There is nothing I would ask of you if I didn’t think you’d want it.”

“I suppose you’re very lucky we want the same things,” Izuru says, and the smile against his chest tells Rose enough. 

“Luckiest bird alive,” she snorts, the force shaking her, and the bitterness of  _ anything _ is washed away by his relief at hearing her voice full of laughter. 

“An albatross,” Rose agrees faintly, face buried in the mix of their hair, pale gold and soft darkness pressed to his cheeks. They sit for a long moment, just breathing in new knowledge and adjusting to the revealed intimacy between them all. He holds onto them, fingers curled in the soft cloth at their shoulders, cheeks brushing with fine hair, letting his love for them and his care fight out the rising bloodlust, the hollow, the awful, enticing images of the two of them bending to his will.


	7. gen- Ichigo-centric; Ichigo falls to his Quincy blood, Yhwach wins

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was writing this for a fandom event except it turned out that they were creepy people and I did Not like them so I never got back around to this lmao
> 
> warnings: a lot of people die, okay, like the Bad Guy Wins here.

“Who are you?” Blood drips softly, one drop at a time beading on his forehead, slipping down in a track of slick, clear vermilion. It stops at his eyelashes, but each blink lets the drops continue, leave red, itching tracks down his cheeks. He cannot see. He cannot breathe. The words leave his mouth like a gasp, forced out by determination and the agony of two years of lies. Seventeen years, really, but the first fifteen were so idyllic they hardly matter. “Who are you?” He spits, breath fading, rattling between his lips.

Idyllic, of course, is subjective.

“Who am I? My son, who are you?” The king smiles, and the boy’s face crumples, lost.

“I don’t-” the blood spills from his lips, his eyes widen, and the last thing he sees is those eyes. Those dark eyes, familiar and warm. Proud. Proud of him, and soft like his father’s. Like his mother’s. Like sinking into the black and letting the shadows take him.

Ichigo Kurosaki dies. Seventeen, bleeding, slumped between two men who can’t meet each others’ eyes and are forced to keep him aloft with a harsh grip, holding him up, holding him still, as his soul is rent into its disparate pieces. Ichigo Kurosaki dies quietly, not slowly, not with a fuss or an audience or a bang- gently, almost thoughtlessly, but as necessary and routine as turning off the lights before you leave home for a long time. Forever, maybe. His soul shatters, cracked like ice on the first day of spring, the hollow sent wailing from one end of his heart to the other. The fragment, the few drops of blood sighing sadly, wistfully, coming home and being sent to eternal torment. They clash, fight, collide and separate like oil and water, red and white, black and blue, and which is which not even they can say. 

The part that is only Ichigo, the part that is home to his self, the few glimmering pieces of humanity, is small, lost in the dark behind the war being waged by the other two. It burns, like a candle flame in a storm, wavering and returning, silent and steadfast. It waits for a calm.

The calm doesn’t come for a long, long time.

Some of them watch. Hidden in the bushes, crouched, bleeding (dying) on the ground. Still and silent, awestruck by the light that burns from him, their Captain Commander dead, the very pillars of their world collapsing. Ichigo Kurosaki emerges from a tear in the sky like a falling comet, a brilliant, untouchable star. He falls. He crashes. His sword is broken, and the reverberation of power is like horror in the swirl of their blood on the ground. An oil slick of fear, a rainbow layer of loss over the red that paints their world.

They see him being dragged away, being pinned to the ground, screaming and spitting, they see his shoulders speared through with arrows, and though he screams, there is no blood. They watch, petrified, horrified, as the Quincies gather around him, hold him down, until their king stands, silent and wrapped in black like one of their own, impassable at his head. He kneels, places his hands on the arrow wounds, and they scream, they shout, they lunge forward to say no, no, not him- but they are cut down, arrows lodged in their throats even as their words leave them, stuck through their bleeding hearts. They don’t care for him, but he can save them.

The king stands back, unmoved. He waits, hair blowing in the faint breeze, two of his men lifting the limp body from the ground, blood weeping from the wounds. It is the painful wail, the mournful, unbound cry of a boy with tears in his eyes that turns the king’s head. His teeth are grit, this child, blood-red hair and a bleeding, broken arm held in close to his chest. He is wreathed in bones, and they are broken, too, but still guarding him. There is a girl clutched in his broken arm, dark and pale and splashed with blood. There is the sting of fear about her, As Nodt’s touch left unfulfilled, and the king tsks at the thought of his failure.

“Let go of him,” the boy spits, blood slipping between his teeth and running down his chin. Red rivers and red hair. Like fire. Like blood. Both so weak under the light.

“Rise,” the king says, and the boy lifts his head, sluggishly, weakly, and his friend gasps at the sight of silver in his eyes. Where once there was brown, only clear, colorless rings remain. Glimmering, unnatural, they stare at the other boy with a damning emotionlessness. The king grins, ugly, cold in the shadow of the rain. “Rise, mein mond.”

* * *

“Once more,” Shinji whispers, and Momo’s yelling fades into the white mist as Rangiku pulls her away, Toshiro’s limp and bleeding body clutched in the other arm. It has to fade. He makes it fade. 

The first exchange of blows is quick, Ichigo’s bankai stripped bare, nothing but speed left in him. Shinji doesn’t want to pull out his shikai. He doesn’t know how much damage it will do, how much it would even affect Ichigo, who is lost in his own mind, his own soul. Then they lock, guard-to-guard, blade-to-blade, and Shinji can hear it.

Can hear nothing. The vast, vacuous space in Ichigo where they used to be everything. A human, a hollow, a ghost. A Quincy.

Ichigo’s blade is silent, silent in a way that shakes Shinji. This isn’t the echoing animalism of the hollow, isn’t the shade of evil and selfish bloodshed. This is measured, calm, empty-eyed purpose. This is a machine, he thinks, gritting his teeth. A machine following the orders it was given. His blade, black as night, is lined with a soft, resonant blue that Shinji knows in his heart will burn through him like a Quincy’s arrow. 

“We got through to you before,” he hisses, slicing cleanly through Ichigo’s left achilles. “We can do it again.” He fell to one knee, and for a sliver of a second he thought he saw Ichigo's eyes flicker.

Ichigo, silent, solemn, stood once more. No blade cut to his core, no word reached his heart. Shinji tried. Shinji parried and slashed and screamed until his lungs went red, screamed until the corners of his mouth split for the strain of it. Spoke until his voice ran dry and his heartbeat overwhelmed him.

“You can kill me,” Shinji hisses, teeth grit like steel on steel. “You can kill me, but you can’t kill my ghost.” He stares back at Shinji, blinking. “When you wake up, I’ll be there. You can’t-” He pushed him back. “Kill me.”

* * *

“I’ve been told you have three children,” the king said, evenly and as pleasantly as if they were discussing nothing of note. “I can feel the other two. My blood glows in them.” He hummed, and beside him Ichigo looked almost alive, hand shaking as if to restrain itself from reaching out to open the door. “What a lovely pair they are. My binary star.”

Ichigo opened the door, and both of them looked up at him, glowing with relief, with joy, only to turn to shock at the lack of color in his eyes, the blank, empty look on his face.

“Ichi... Ichi-niisan?” Yuzu reached up, one small hand crumpling the thick black fabric at his ankle. “Are you okay?” He didn’t answer, but something in his face softened, made him less severe. Less frightening. He didn’t kick her away.

“They’ll be coming with us,” the king said, still pleasant, still calm. “All three of my children.

“Your children?” Isshin said, lip curled in disgust.

“They are mine now, as they have always been. As they will always be.” At the king’s soft pronouncement, Isshin turned, wild-eyed and furious, full of emotion in a way that made him weak. 

“No,” he grit from between his teeth. “Not my son, not my daughters.” His sword gleamed as he drew it from the air, blood-silver in the light, and Karin’s breath caught in her chest even as she clutched Yuzu even closer to her chest. “You took my wife. You will not take anyone else.” He sprang forward, a cry like despair wrenched from his throat, sword level and long. The king did not falter. He did not look away. He did not move. Isshin’s cry choked in his chest, drowned in the gurgle and sputter of blood filling his throat. 

Ichigo stood before the king, still-faced and solemn, Isshin’s blade caught in his hand, stuck elegantly between two fingers like a playing card. His own sword was thrust cleanly through his father’s ribcage.

“Ichigo,” he choked, and his son met his eyes with a foreign calm. “Ichigo,” he said again, grasping for words, breath wheezing, whistling through his split lungs. “I forgive you.” He fell to his knees, the blade pulling back through his chest until only the tip remained. “Forgive you,” he sighed, collapsing back onto the ground. Ichigo stood, unmoved. Yuzu cried into Karin’s chest, but Karin kept silent, because someone had to.

* * *

Being a sister is not braiding each other’s hair and laughing at your brother. It isn’t walking home together and holding hands. Sisterhood is clutching your sister so tightly to your chest you make her bleed, your nails embedded into her shoulder, so tight you can never really let go, as your brother murders your father. Watching, wide-eyed and empty as your brother stands, cold as ice, watching his father- your father-’s blood drip from his blade. Calm, quiet, empty. 

Being a sister is keeping your teeth tight, your jaw locked, because letting go means losing. It is holding on with everything you are, clinging to the scraps of light that are left to you and praying that those won’t be taken, too. Nails dug deep into your sister’s skin and eyes locked on your brother as he looks to you- as they both look to you- as if you can save them.


	8. gen- Ichigo-centric; magic au

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this had such promise. idk where I was going with it, but I wish I did

Ichigo hadn’t really known what magic was until he was fifteen. It had been a ‘rich person thing,’ a ‘we’ll talk about it in senior year’ thing, a ‘less than twenty percent of the population are capable’ thing. Until he woke to a pain in his chest in the middle of the night, his own sweat frozen to his skin and the screech of a dark spirit in his ears. His sisters screaming, the dust from broken walls and cracked ceiling returning to wet paste on his drenched skin, the crackle and slash of blue light coming off of his hands- flashes of flashes of moments.

He fell from his bed, and waited, crouched on the floor, for the flickering blue to calm, for the ache of electricity and light to fade. It did, but it didn’t. It chased him, heated cold and painful constriction in his lungs whenever he looked away. The evil spirit screeched, flew toward him in a rush of smoke and lightning and-

Burned apart on his upraised hand. 

And then suddenly magic wasn’t an ‘other people’ thing. Suddenly it was  _ his _ thing.

Kurosaki Ichigo became a name only whispered, replaced by Zangetsu, his familiar’s name printed in blue ink in the newspaper. Blue ink was for magic, stories printed in indigo so the words couldn’t be stolen, so the truth couldn’t be swept away. Indigo was a barrier plant, and Ichigo began growing it in earnest. Began planting it in circles around his family’s apothecary, painting it in lines around his windows, his doors. His exploits netted him a bounty- a solid salary from each spirit torn from this world and burned into a softer energy. He bought a solitary mansion in the countryside, stored enough money- solid silver, reliable, cold- to last a man for a thousand years, and kept at it until every town around him was safe. Untouched, unharmed, unhaunted.

And then, quite suddenly, after six years-

Zangetsu disappeared as well.


	9. Momo/Kensei; soulmate AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> still one of my favorite rarepairs. Maybe one day I'll rewrite this properly

Kensei got his soulmark maybe three years after they’d been banished. Later in his life than most, but earlier than not at all. It could have been a mystery, if Shinji hadn’t known to notice. He might’ve just shrugged it off as some kind of aftereffect of the hollowfication, maybe an uprising of cero energy that had gotten caught in the gigai. He’d have found some way to explain it, but he didn’t have to. They’d been sparring, he and Shinji, and after a hard hit to his hand, Kensei had hissed and pulled back, examining his right hand as if hurt. His practice sword fell, echoing dully in the confines of the barn they’d found to spend the night in. Practice sword was perhaps too kind. ‘Hastily carved stick,’ was a more appropriate name.

“Y’alright?” Shinji had asked, eyes narrowed suspiciously, sparring sword twirling restlessly in hand. Kensei couldn’t have answered if he tried, too taken aback by what was happening to him. It had been a slight sting at first, just a flinch, as if he’d been hit on the knuckles. But it was growing, a pinching, boiling heat creeping across his palm like a burn, like red ink setting into wet paper. It wasn’t a shape, exactly, just a malformed red splash stretching around his hand. His whole palm covered, small splashes arching around towards the back. Purposeful, determined. And then it cooled. Tangibly, easily, as if whatever had been burning it had disappeared. Shinji had come over to see, held Kensei’s aching, twitching hand between his own, turning it this way and that, examining it.

“What the hell was that?” He demanded, but Shinji had said nothing, poking the sore, red flesh of his palm. “Stop that!” He stopped, stepping back. There was a strange, wistful fondness in his face, which disappeared as soon as it had come. Kensei might have lingered on that, if he’d known to at the time. As it was, he barely even thought of it.

“Congratulations,” the blond had drawled, with a wide, unsettling grin. “You have a soulmate.”

The others had heard, of course, and with Mashiro in the lead, they swarmed over to see. Kensei had to push through the crowd of them to get to the door. He slammed it behind him, leaning up against it for good measure. Mashiro had turned to follow him, mouth already open to whine, when Shinji grasped her shoulder with a firm hand.

“Leave him,” he said quietly. “At least for a minute or two.”

“I don’t want to,” she complained, shrugging him off. “I wanna see.”

“Doesn’t much matter what you want,” he said in a tone at once both humorless and mocking. “Doesn’t matter what any of us want.” He left it at that, but Mashiro had been sufficiently distanced from the news to move onto something else, and proceeded to bother Lisa until she got smacked with a stolen volume of an encyclopedia Lisa had found in the local school. Volume Ra-Rr was hefty, and well-suited for violence. Shinji watched the circus with distant eyes, glancing to the door every now and then, as if to check Kensei was still outside of it.

The man himself was shivering, the cold outside almost overwhelming after the heat in the coming of his mark. 

* * *

Momo didn’t come easily. Toshiro hadn’t, either, but the chill that followed him, the ice of his eyes and the frost of his hair- those were tangible differences. They could be seen and felt and shied away from. The differences in Momo were inside of her, twisting and furling like flames, like branches, like flowers. She was born screaming, screaming, screaming, like the wail of a lost child in the snow. She had a handprint on her head. It would be invisible when her hair grew out, but she had no hair now, and it was bloody red against her pale, hot skin. Her mother bled out, her father disappeared, and someone had to take her in. The villagers murmured and whispered and shook their heads, and refused her, eyeing Toshiro like a bad omen. So it was Grandmother who sighed and smiled and took her, picking her way across town, through the frosted field to the small hut she shared with a lost boy. She’d taken in Toshiro, after all. She could take another. 

“You’re a spitfire, aren’t you?” She said, more than asked. “Hinamori miss. You need a name. A proper name.” She hummed and stroked a finger over the bright, burning red handprint across the back of her skull, and Momo went silent. She took her home, and she said nothing. Toshiro looked in, blue eyes wide, and though she stared back, she said nothing. 

Time passed slow in the Rukongai, especially in the uneventful places, the peaceful places. Momo stopped bleeding. She grew. Toshiro, try as he might to act the older brother, stagnated. He was frozen, a child forever, and Momo eased into the role of older sister far more easily than he’d like. She calmed, like a storm, and let out a softness that was, in her, as bright as the sun. She went to Academy. He went to Academy. Parallels, parallels, running alongside each other. Now one is ahead, now the other. Never quite even, never quite equal.

Shiro’s differences eased, changed as he came into his own. Momo’s grew. They reached, spread, circled, like an endless, burning maze she was forced to navigate every time she got angry. Toshiro had felt the warmth of her, the heat of her fury, the blaze of her, and it was terrible in its beauty. There was something in her that flickered and snapped, dangerous. Like the calling in his soul, the frost at the tips of his fingers. Dangerous. And yet, still the other children flocked to her, came to her, spoke with her. But children are drawn to the sun, aren’t they? The warmth of her friendship, her kindness, was sunlight, and it drew others in. She showed him how to temper himself. To soften, to be vulnerable instead of sharp. 

She saw Toshiro, saw the untamed fury lying ice-deep in his bones, the loneliness running through him like a crack, and decided she’d never be that. She mastered her anger. She dimmed the flames, softened the pricking branches of her soul. Planted peach trees in her mind and watered them with patience. Let her hair grow out, longer and longer. Let things lie where they were buried. Let the graves sink and the past fade and the screaming stop.

She cut her hair when she went to Academy. Again after becoming Lieutenant. Again after… after. A reminder to be patient. To be certain that change would come and she would weather it. That she wasn’t wildfire. She wasn’t fury. She was a candle flame, a burning coal. Steady, certain, hearth and home.

* * *

Their hands clasp easily, carelessly, and the swell of unfamiliar emotion sends them both back. They step away from each other quickly, as though burned. Perhaps they have been.

* * *

He presses his forehead to her thighs, grips her knees with a gentle desperation. He breathes and trembles and clings to her body as if he means to lay himself to ground in it, as if she’s the resting place of his soul. One hand comes up to rest at the back of his head, brushing softly through his hair. He looks up at her, and the wet, worn brown of his eyes burns. She leans forward, and her unpinned hair falls around her face, around his, brushing over his wet cheeks. Their foreheads touch, and it should hurt, everything should hurt, but nothing does

“I choose this,” she whispers into the darkness, the violet-black sky throwing her words back at her. She presses a kiss to the glimmer of gold in his eyebrow, the sharp jut of his cheekbone. “I choose broken over bleeding,” she whispers into his temple. A kiss to his jaw, the corner of his mouth. “I choose burning over fading.”


	10. Aizen/reader; pope!Aizen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I barely remember starting this but like.... If I was going that far and getting myself thrown out of church you'd think I'd have the decency to finish it

She owed him everything. Her home, her livelihood, her life. And money. Especially money. By all accounts she should have been paying him back for the rest of her life, but His Holiness was a reasonable man, or so they said, and he had called her in. She waited outside, hands fisted in her skirt, throat tight and eyes wet. It shouldn’t upset her so. He was a reasonable man. He wouldn’t ask for more than she could give.

But then, that was what was worrying her- she had nothing to give.

Not a coin or a prayer or a plea could she offer up to His High Holiness, the Pope. Lord of the Kingdom of Heaven, they called him. King of the Street. Ruler of the Living and the Dead. Titles of nobility and royalty and fear, as if he was God, Himself. They stoked the fear in her to a flame, licking feverishly at her trembling fingertips, heating her cheeks, burning her beating heart. She’d never met him. The deal which had secured her family’s freedom, their stability, had been made with her parents. She’d never known what price he’d ask, what she would have to sacrifice when she eventually called her to his court. She still didn’t know, but the time had come. She would have to pay the price. A guard gestured toward the tall, wooden door. It looked older and more expensive than anything she’d ever touched. The amount of air it displaced as it moved out of her way made it feel heavy. Made it feel solid and untouchable.

The room behind that ancient, untouchable door was equally untouchable for a very different reason. The room was wide and tall and airy, supported by pillars of cool stone, carved and polished to perfection. The gold and white that spiralled and curled over the ceiling was brilliant. Bright. There was too much to look at, too much to take in. Awe-inspiring, humbling, overwhelming. She forced her eyes to the impeccable tiled floor and tried to breathe. There was gold there, too, and it felt smooth under her dirty, uncouth shoes. The door swung closed behind her, heavy and yet silent. Any sound it made was inaudible, too small for her to hear over the sound of her own breath. A quiet noise of amusement echoed from in front of her. Her heart almost stopped. She looked up, and the first thing she saw was white. Bright and clean in all that shining gold and warm creamy stone. Dark hair, dark eyes. A thin smile, at once intrigued and removed. He was just colors, just lines, from so far below. But beautiful, beautiful like everything around him.

He was a reasonable man, she told herself. He would ask a reasonable price.

She stopped at the foot of the stairs, looking with a strange kind of fear at her own shoes, at the gold and white tile beneath them. She was beginning to realize that whatever she had, whatever she could offer… it wouldn’t be enough. For a man like this, the world itself wouldn’t be enough.

She stood. Waited. Felt the sharp, assessing heat of his gaze on her cold skin. Felt small, and insignificant, and disposable. There was a long moment of silence, air trapped in her lungs, heart still. A small, quiet noise like his tongue against his teeth, disappointment, maybe, or resignation. She felt herself ache with the weight of it.

“Come closer,” he commanded in a soft, deep voice. He betrayed no emotion, only a vague curiosity. She forced another breath into her lungs and looked up at him, at the steps leading up to his throne, the gold and white seat of power from which her home was governed and led. Her fingers shook. Her heart beat like a drum in her ears, urgent, pushing her on. She took a step. Another. His eyes grew clearer the closer she came, the darkness of them growing harder, sharper. The line of his smile grew colder, the curve of his hand under his chin more careless, the easy rest of his legs more obviously the restraint and tension of a predator awaiting his prey. She kept climbing, one shaking, painful step at a time, until she stood before his throne, a short foot away from him.

“Kneel,” he ordered in the same soft voice. She dropped to her knees without hesitation, without doubt or resistance. She couldn’t help it. His voice compelled her, pressed her. The smooth marble of the dais was cold under her knees, chilling her. Her eyes were locked to his feet, and she focused on them in the hope that she might remain calm. White shoes, too, she noticed. Black lines, but white shoes. So much white, simple and pure and untouched by the rest of the world. Her face was tilted down, but her hair curtained her face, fell in front of her chest. His gaze was even fiercer, so close. Something tangible, touching her, caressing her shoulders, her wrists, her thighs. “Stand,” he told her, and she had to scramble to her feet, her legs shaking now, too, her palms cold where they’d pushed her up from the stone. She stood, unsteady and small, still looking down. “Pull your hair back.” She pushed it behind her shoulders, tucked it behind her ears. Stood, feeling exposed. His eyes followed the curves of her body, her hips, her waist, her hands, curled by her sides. The swell of her breasts, the joining of her thighs. She didn’t dare look up. His feet moved, then his legs, then he was standing, looking down on her with that same careless power. 


End file.
